Know thy data, but know thy audience better.
Identify your goals
Explore your data and focus
Focus even narrower
Find the context
Put it together
Widgets provide limited utility.
What is the goal of this graphic?
obviously and education were used a lot
How you turn dimensions in the data into visual cues for your audience is everything.
Plot the data as is - easy to explain, does not scale
Calculate statistics on the data and plot, meaningful, may obscure important detail
Model the data, analysis of specific questions is clear, harder to explain
Term: Raw data - Plot the points as is - Pros: easy to explain and interpret - Cons: does not scale well, insights not obvious
Term: Summarize - Summarize the data and plot summaries - Pros: Meaningful summaries are efficient - Cons: More complex, summaries may skew important features
Term: Model - Model the data and show simulations or projections - Pros: Forces analysis to answer questions - Cons: Complex, difficult to convey results
Identify our goals and make a lot of graphs.
Exploratory graphics are what we use to understand the data. They are useful for us to understand what is going on and where the key features of a dataset are.
Explanatory graphics are polished and annotated graphics that provide the viewer with information. Sometimes they are self-contained.